Throughout history, Shepherd's beaked whale a.k.a. the Tasman beaked whale has been spotted only a handful of times, as this deepwater cetacean comes up for air very briefly.

But in a happy coincidence, blue whale researchers ran into this uncommon creature off the coast of southern Australia. Explains Michael Double of the Australian Antarctic Division team, "These animals are practically entirely known from stranded dead whales, and there haven't been many of them." Check out the first footage of this beaked mammal above, and marvel in the fact that our oceans hide so many amazing animals. [AFP]